Thursday, February 4, 2010

Coming Up Next

I don’t pay a lot of attention to visitor and page view stats for This D*mn House but I do keep score. Mostly, it’s just me being shocked as hell by how many places across the country and even around the world check in from time to time.

Occasional upswings are normal. During the past few years, I’ve had several. They rarely last more than a few days. But nearly two weeks ago, I noticed something a little odd: lots of visits from all over the world. Lots. And it's not trending down.

There was one of two things responsible for it. 1. My February 2009 review of the Twin DraftGuard (understandable, as even places that don’t really have winter have been cold this year) is getting a lot of Google hits and 2. referrals from Next blog.

Huh? What’s a next blog?

The first Google entries on Blogger’s Next Blog were about how to disable it. (Apparently, back in 2005/2006, it could potentially link you to porn, though for some people that might be a plus.) But then I came across this rather interesting article on Blogger Buzz. If you visit Blogger blogs or use it for your own blog, you might notice the little navigation bar atop the blog’s header. That's where Next Blog lives. Used to be that if you clicked on it, it would take you to a random blog. No more.

Now, according to Blogger Buzz: The new and improved Next Blog link will now take you to a blog with similar content, in a language that you understand. If you are reading a Spanish blog about food, the Next Blog link will likely take you to another blog about food. In Spanish!

How cool is that? As if I don’t already have enough blogs to lose track of, I’ve discovered a few more this week. Some selections have made more sense than others. And others, while they don’t seem at all related to either my blog or the blog I was just reading after hitting Next Blog, are just fun.

Just in the past couple of days, I’ve had visitors from Albania, Romania, St. Lucia, Dubai, Paris, London, Glasgow, Moscow, Berlin, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, Greece, Turkey, Brussels, Malaysia, Spain, the Philippines and Iran (just to name a few!) Hi world – so nice of you to stop by!

So, if you’re looking for something new to read, give ole Next Blog a click. Eventually, you might end up right back here.

6 comments:

karen said...

Very Cool!!!!

MonkeyGirl said...

Thank you for exploring that! I was wondering how the guy from the UK and someone who wrote something in Chinese that I can't understand (at least I think it is Chinese) found my blog!

Jayne said...

Ah-ha. That explains the upswing in my visitors as well, I think.

NV said...

I'm thnking it's not always working as intended. It took me on a weird little adventure the other day.

Kate R said...

I had always noticed the "next" button in the header but had never tried it until I read your post. Um yeah, I also got the weird little adventure.

Vicki said...

That's cool!, although I think I'm going to stay away. I barely have time to keep up with the blogs in my reader these days. Maybe this summer...